Posted by Suedehead on July 31, 2008, at 14:37:44
Hi everyone,
I posted a few times in the past under a different name but never really participated much (though I've lurked excessively for quite a while). Anyway, I've been feeling kind of lonely/in need of some community lately, so I thought I'd give this another try.
Anyway, my T is going on vacation for two weeks starting tomorrow. We had our last session before the break this morning. It went okay. We spent the first forty minutes talking about some problems (that's putting it lightly, really) I'm having with my boyfriend, and then, with five minutes left, he said, "I guess we haven't even had a chance to talk about my vacation." Ugh. Yeah. I said, "Yeah, well, I think you know that I'm not too happy about it." Of course he asked me to "say more about that"--so I somehow summoned the courage to tell him that I'm worried that I'll really miss him. This was a monumental effort for me. I have a lot of trouble admitting to people that I care about them, so for me to let him know in such explicit terms that he's important to me was terrifying and hugely embarrassing. He knows all this. He said, "That was a big risk" and looked kind of shocked and touched at the same time. But he didn't say anything else! I mean, okay, I wasn't really expecting him say, "Oh, yeah, I'll miss you, too," but he at least could have told me that what I'm feeling is normal, and that he understands, and that two weeks will be over before I know it. Some kind of reassurance, you know? We sat there for a minute in really awkward silence, and then he reminded me that he "will be unreachable" but that he left the number of a colleague on his voicemail if I need to talk to someone while he's gone ("though I doubt that will be necessary"). This really annoyed me. I KNOW that he's going to be unreachable--he had told me that a couple of times already. I felt totally infantilized. By this point we'd gone over by about six or seven minutes (which is pretty standard for us--but that's another issue) so I just said, "Okay. Well, see you on the 18th," and walked out. I wanted to cry. It's bad enough that I've gotten so attached to him that I really will miss him a lot--but his reaction to my admission of this was totally awful. Usually he's great. I don't know. Maybe I really took him by surprise by being so forward? How do your Ts react to stuff like this--being told that you miss them when they're not around, etc.? Should I expect more of him?
poster:Suedehead
thread:843273
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080727/msgs/843273.html